Meeting with destiny

Glenn Schneider was 14 years old and lived in New York City. He traveled with his amateur astronomy club from New York to North Carolina to see the 1970 total eclipse of the sun. He brought with him several cameras, a movie camera, binoculars and a telescope. He practiced over and over again exactly what he would do at every moment during the total eclipse.

He was ready.

He saw the moon’s shadow coming toward him from the west. Up above him, the crescent of the sun was shrinking, shrinking … the diamond ring appeared … the corona came into view … and Glenn just stood there looking.

He was too stunned by what he saw to start his movie camera or take photos with his telescope or look through his binoculars.

He had read all about total eclipses of the sun. He had heard people talk about them. He had planned exactly what he would do. But nothing could prepare him for what he was seeing. He just stood there, frozen, and looked – for all 2 minutes 54 seconds of the total eclipse.

At that moment, he promised himself that he would see every total eclipse of the Sun for the rest of his life— and he has. The 14-year-old boy grew up to become Dr. Glenn Schneider, a University of Arizona and Hubble Space Telescope astronomer.

On Aug. 21, he will see his 34th total eclipse of the sun.